The head of England\u2019s Independent Football Regulator says the Manchester City case is expected to be resolved before the end of the season, with a decision timetable already in place.<\/p>\n
David Kogan, the IFR chief, told Times Radio: \u201cMy understanding is there is a prescribed process, which is 12 weeks, and so people are assuming this will actually be heard by the middle or the end of January.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cIt\u2019s not [the IFR\u2019s] process, it\u2019s that of the Premier League\u2019s independent commission. What I don\u2019t think we can do is take any judgment until we\u2019re quite clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, City claim that they have some form of silver bullet to put off these charges and win the appeal, and we\u2019re not there to judge whether that\u2019s right or wrong yet, but I think we\u2019ll know in the early part of next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the first appeal fails, City could in theory continue to challenge the original verdict, although any further step would need legal grounds and those grounds would narrow with each stage. Given the club\u2019s repeated denial of wrongdoing, it appears unlikely that a failed appeal leading to sanctions would be accepted without further resistance.<\/p>\n
Separate from any punishment handed down by the independent commission, the IFR would also have the power to end Sheikh Mansour\u2019s stewardship of Manchester City if a guilty verdict stands. As Kogan set out in an IFR statement on Sept. 30, that would happen if his ownership was no longer considered \u201csuitable\u201d in the interests of \u201cprotecting the sustainability, honesty and integrity\u201d of English soccer, and where there is \u201cclear evidence of wrongdoing by individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n
The wider political backdrop has also drawn attention, with the ownership\u2019s relationship with U.K. prime minister Andy Burnham and any possible influence on the process coming under scrutiny. There are concerns about strained relations between the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, given Sheikh Mansour\u2019s role as a senior politician and member of the royal family in the Gulf nation.<\/p>\n
Burnham, formerly the Mayor of Greater Manchester, has been cautious in discussing the guilty verdict while remaining complimentary about the economic impact of UAE investment in east Manchester. At the end of September, he said he would be \u201creally concerned to lose them,\u201d and also stated: \u201cThey\u2019ve been such a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester and obviously the building of Manchester City into the global force that it is,\u201d and \u201cI do actually thank the City Football Group and the wider ownership for the money that they didn\u2019t just put into the Etihad [Stadium] and the campus around it but also into the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
His concern could be seen as a potential source of government pressure, but Kogan and the IFR seem confident it will not become an issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kogan says the City case should be heard by January, with a ruling expected early next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238],"tags":[59,182],"class_list":["post-21770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-city","tag-featured","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}